The music in the background switches to some kind of mix of opera and death metal, as Black confidently slams down a stone at 1. White, however, is unimpressed. Instead of cowering under the table in fear, he instead laughs at the fact that Black just played self atari. “Wow, what a silly move. I was worried about this game, but now he is just going to make it so easy…” thinks White as he snickers and captures the Black stones. His laughter is turned to tears, however, when… After White takes the stones off of the board and holds his head high in self satisfaction, Black very quietly lays down 2.

Keep in mind that consonants are read only one way. For instance, in English the letter “g” can be pronounced as either a “g” or a “j”, as in “Game” vs. “Large”. This is not so in Romaji. So for instance the word “Tengen” is not pronounced “Tenjen” but rather “Tengen” with a hard “g”. “Ch” is pronounced as in “cheese” or “chalk”, and not a “k” sound. Japanese has five vowel sounds: A as in father. I as in rUeeUd. *U as in fUooUl. E as in bet. O as in mode. Japanese also has what are called “long vowels”.

If you have read level 1 of this series, then you know all about the magic numbers of 4 and 6 and how they relate to life and death. We also covered the idea of a placement attack and lowering the eye space of your opponent’s group to kill them. Now we need to go further in depth with these same concepts. Let’s first deal with the technique of reducing your opponent to a dead shape. If you remember, when White plays 1, then Black is left with one eye. White can play at A to atari Black, and then after a cascade of ataris later, Black will be captured.